An affair need not break you

I started blogging for my own reasons but naively I never realised the impact a blog has. People follow your blog to see your journey, where you came from, why you are here and to join you in where you end up. They follow you because there is an aspect of their lives that runs in parallel with your own. A lot of my followers have come from a broken relationship or marriage, largely due an affair.

The feelings that pour out on those blogs are all too familiar but I wanted to share why I think you can come through it. I’m no expert, I just have first hand experience. I have learnt a lot, so I am going to type it up in the home some of you can try and look through where you are right now, and see where you will be.

Nobody can tell you how to react, everyone reacts differently but the theme remains the same. Betrayal, a complete shock and the feeling of being totally let down by someone you assumed would never do it. You choose to be in a relationship with someone you have a mutual respect with, someone you want to do everything with. When you discover they are not that person, there is natural shock.

There are different levels of an affair, depending on whether you are married, have children etc. But and affair is an affair none the less. It causes a lot of pain and sadly causes you to question yourself as a person. That is the other level of an affair you see, the fact that it reflects on yourself. What have been people been thinking behind your back? Do people now assume you are bad in bed? Am I boring? Was I not good enough? The questions go on and on, and it is our human nature to try and reason with something we cannot take in. In reality though, there is no answer, the person who had the affair did it for their own reasons.

They will always try and justify what happened with those reasons, but ultimately they decided to do it. In everyone’s life there are crossroads, and different paths leading from them. They were at that crossroad, do they have an affair or not? That is their decision alone, and you yourself have no bearing on that decision. You will be told it was a mistake, it just happened, they were lonely and other such excuses. All excuses, no blame on yourself.

How do you react though? It is natural to be devastated, and for it to be constantly on your mind. Whether you hate that person is to be decided, but we all miss a trick in that we need to instantly protect ourselves. You will be swamped with support from everyone but sadly, nobody truly knows how you feel. There is a social perception of obvious feelings but each and every person is different. If you had lower self esteem than another person perhaps, then you would be affected more.

I suppose I was lucky, I had suspected for quite some time so when it finally all came out it was a relief. Finding out all the actual facts was the hard part.

Reading some of your blogs, there is pure pain in your posts. Time does heal, but a lot of these posts are people hanging on to the fact that the relationship can recover. If you can make it work, then fair play to you. But, sadly, it will never be the same as a line has been crossed. That person has done the unthinkable, if you take them back can you ever truly move on like nothing has happened? I had the option to make a go of it (her words not mine), but no thank you. The person who had the affair, once you have forgiven, will never quite respect you again because they got forgiven! In effect, they got away with it.

Anyone that can move on from an affair, I wish you the absolute best luck in the world. But anyone struggling, stop beating yourself up every day. You cannot change what has happened and it doesn’t need to destroy you. It also doesn’t need to give you any trust issues with future relationships. Remember they did it, not you. The self esteem issues are their own.

Find yourself a distraction, and repair yourself. The world is a big beautiful place, put yourself back out there. I will be, but only when I can afford it!

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2 thoughts on “An affair need not break you”

It is so inspirational to see that you have a great attitude and were able to move on gracefully. My parents were divorced when I was six. I am so glad they divorced. They were miserable together most of the time. They have since both been married to their second spouses for over 40 years. After a loving 30-year relationship with my husband, I was blindsided, dumbfounded. I sat in shock for weeks. I know, for me, moving on would have been/would be the easier road. Staying with my addict husband is incredibly difficult every day. Some days are much worse than others. I do truly believe he loves me. The sex with other women, was just sex. I absolutely hate being stalked by a delusional alcoholic woman who just happened to be my husband’s drug of the moment, but nobody ever told me it was going to be easy. As a matter of fact, my mother set me straight before I ever got married. She had been through the ringer. My husband did not leave me for one of his acting out partners. He did not love them. He was not unhappy in our marriage. He is a broken man. I could leave today. But I don’t plan to. His journey will be long and difficult. For now I will stand by him. I enjoy your blog and am sad you missed Halloween with your kids yesterday. I’m sure every day is a blessing with them. I hope you will be able to clear your debt soon… and you will get to change the name of your blog :).

thank you for replying, you have my upmost respect for sticking through it all. Your husband, I hope, appreciates how strong you are. I read your blog too and am hoping to see some positive news for you personally x